From the halls of Capitol Hill to a courtroom in Brownsville, TX, Republicans attacked immigrants and their families on multiple fronts this week. How will this impact the implementation of executive action? What does this mean for the “moderate” Republicans that dissented? And what will the effect be on immigration politics going forward? These were the topics of discussion on this week’s Office Hours.

Reacting to this week’s developments in the House, Cesar Vargas, Co-Director of DRM Action Coalition, reminded Republicans that Dreamers are prepared to hold them accountable for their attacks against immigrant families:

With legislation to end deportation relief for our families and political lawsuits, Republican leaders have shown they are too timid to stand up to the ‘Deport-them-All’ Tea Party extremists. Dreamers will continue to protect the executive reforms from President Obama. As we approach 2016, we will remind the presidential hopefuls that executive action is a requisite for winning support from our Latino, Asian communities.

Today, in Denver, Colorado, Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO), local officials and Latino leaders gathered to denounce the barrage of GOP attacks and remind lawmakers, like Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO) who voted in favor of ending executive action but against ending DACA, what’s at stake for their party and the millions of immigrant families they voted to deport. Said Patty Kupfer, Managing Director of America’s Voice who’s based in Denver, CO:

Today, we participated in an event with families that would benefit from executive action to demonstrate to Mike Coffman and others that voting to spare DREAMers, while hastening the deportation of their parents and millions of others is not a moderate position on immigration. The only thing it proves is how deeply out of touch the Republican Party has become on immigration. The fact that a handful of Republicans can dissent on a single vote to deport Dreamers and still be cast as ‘middle of the road’ is really just a statement that the GOP’s lurch to the extreme right is now complete.

Meanwhile, down south in Brownsville, Texas, Federal Judge Andrew Hanen heard the first arguments in the 25 state lawsuit against executive action this week. Said Karen Tumlin, Managing Attorney at the National Immigration Law Center, about the proceedings:

Whether challenging DACA in 2012, or the Affordable Care Act before then, opponents of President Obama’s signature achievements have long looked to the courts to undo progress — and they have failed. We are confident this futile legal quest will meet the same end, and that’s why we’re not wasting a moment of momentum: the time to get ready for initiatives that will improve our communities, economy, and society is now.

Yesterday, America’s Voice Education Fund put out a new report detailing the nativist origins of the 25 state lawsuit and Judge Hanen’s questionable foray into the world of immigration politics. Read the full report, “A Coordinated Attack: Judge Hanen and the Nativist Lawsuit Against DAPA and DACA,” here.

Concluded Frank Sharry, Executive Director of America’s Voice:

At the end of the day, we remain optimistic that executive action is going to be implemented and that millions of people will be protected. Republicans don’t have the votes in Congress to stop it, they don’t have the law on their side in the courts, nor do they have the support of the American public. For Republicans to take on executive action is bad policy and bad politics. Fortunately, these important and historic immigration policy changes will change the lives of millions of immigrants for better, and begin to rebalance our immigration system forever.

Yesterday, the case filed by 25 states suing President Obama over executive action received its first hearing with federal judge Andrew Hanen. The defendant (the federal government) has requested until the end of January to file another brief, which means that Hanen’s ruling won’t come until at least February. There are several things that might happen in his ruling:

Standing — this is the first thing that the plaintiff states must establish. If they can’t demonstrate that they suffer a particular harm due to executive action (and they are claiming all sorts of harms), then they don’t have standing, and the case will be thrown out.

Injunction – the states have asked that the judge hand down preliminary injunction while the case is pending. This would block executive action while the case winds through the legal system. If the judge has ruled that the states have standing, Hanen can either 1) deny the motion for an injunction, thereby allowing executive action to begin being implemented, 2) grant an injunction, or 3) grant an injunction only in the 25 states that have sued.

Stay — if Hanen hands down an injunction, a higher court can issue a stay. That would freeze Judge Hanen’s decision granting the injunction and once more allow executive action to proceed while the case winds through the courts.

Below, with an informal quick-take and more details is David Leopold, an immigration attorney, legal consultant to America’s Voice and past president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association:

Does Hanen first need to rule on standing, or can he rule on standing and the injunction at the same time?

Think of standing as the question of whether or not the plaintiffs have shown they have suffered a harm that he can rule on. In other words, I could not sue because someone broke a contract with you. You would have to sue. I would have no standing.

So the judge first needs to agree there is standing, e.g. that the plaintiffs have articulated some harm to them over which he has the authority to rule. If, like the judge in the Arpaio case, he concludes there is no standing, he could dismiss on that basis alone. If he concludes there is standing he then (in the same opinion) will likely rule on the injunction. He could conceivably agree there is standing, but deny the injunction, so the two are not necessarily mutually dependent. Bottom line, the 25 states must show they have standing to sue. If no there is standing, there will be no injunction and the case fails. That would be the best result. According to many observers however, it’s more likely, given the judge’s background, that he’ll agree there is standing and will grant the injunction.

If Hanen issues an injunction would it affect DACA and Morton memos as well as executive action, or just executive action (i.e. DACA expansion, DAPA, new priorities enforcement memos, etc)?

First, this is a hypothetical question. Let’s remember, the immigration executive actions are solidly legal; they are based constitutional and statutory authority and are consistent with deportation reprieves implemented by presidents of both parties dating back to Eisenhower.

That said, this is a much more difficult question because it involves complicated jurisdictional questions. And I don’t believe scholars are of one view about the answer. The rules governing declaratory judgments give the court authority to declare the rights of parties. Whether or not a ruling declaring the president’s executive actions unlawful would immediately apply across the country is a matter of debate. What’s clear is that an adverse ruling declaring the immigration executive actions unconstitutional, if allowed to stand (which I believe is unlikely at best), would affect DAPA and DACA expansion nationally. It would not impact the Morton memos because those are agency policy directives which are not targeted by the suit, and their legality has not been challenged. Nor would it likely affect most of the immigration executive actions related to business immigration issues. I think an adverse ruling would also effect DACA because the complaint asks for a ruling on the “deferred action program.”

Would an adverse final decision (from SCOTUS) affect DACA and the Morton memos as well as executive action, or just executive action (i.e. DACA expansion, DAPA, new priorities enforcement memos, etc)? In the 25 states or nationwide?

Again, hypothetically, an adverse SCOTUS ruling would likely affect the well-settled tradition of prosecutorial discretion in general—and throw the entire immigration enforcement system into disarray because it could impact all exercises of deferred action, and, therefore all enforcement decisions. In other words, it wouldn’t be clear how much authority the president has to grant exercised prosecutorial discretion in immigration matters, including deferred action. It would be a royal mess.

But this is outcome his highly unlikely. As recently as its decision in Arizona vs U.S. SCOTUS reaffirmed that “a principal feature of the removal system is the broad discretion exercised by immigration officials.” Moreover, as stated, for decades presidents of both parties have granted deportation reprieves to large classes of undocumented immigrants. According to the Immigration Policy Center perhaps the most striking historical parallel to today’s immigration challenges is the “Family Fairness” policy which led President George H.W. Bush to offer a blanket deferral to as many as 1.5 million spouses and children of immigrants who were legalizing, provided they met certain criteria.

If Hanen issues an injunction and it’s stayed, will DHS be able to continue implementation of the program nationwide?

This is exactly what I predict will happen. And DHS will be able to continue implementation of DAPA and DACA nationwide. At some point some court is going to have to correctly apply the law. My hope is that it will be Judge Hanen who has sworn to uphold the law. But if not, my guess is that it will be the 5th circuit court of appeals—not because they like DAPA or DACA or Obama—but because as a federal appellate court they must ensure the integrity of the judicial system. The 25 states clearly lack standing to bring this suit and that’s exactly what I think the ultimate ruling will turn on.

How much time could pass between the issuing of a preliminary injunction and having it stayed by another court?

Going out on a limb here, but I believe it will be very short—a matter of hours, if that much. My guess is that in the event of an adverse ruling the government will immediately ask the judge to stay his own order granting the injunction pending appeal. He may or may not do that. If he doesn’t, the government will probably immediately appeal to the 5th circuit and request an emergency hearing. And if that doesn’t work, the government will likely ask SCOTUS to intervene.

Today was the first hearing in the 25 states’ lawsuit against executive action, heard by federal judge Andrew Hanen in Brownsville, TX — and advocates were on hand to make it clear what they thought about the lawsuit.

Obama’s executive action utilizes is an enforcement tool (prosecutorial discretion) that has been used on immigration by presidents going back to Eisenhower. It separates deportation priorities from people who don’t deserve to be uprooted or to have their families separated. Today’s protesters called on the plaintiff states and those who oppose executive action to stop attacking immigrant families. View some of the photos and tweets below:

Urge Officials to Remove Ohio from the Lawsuit and Protect State’s Good Name

Leaders and Ohio Residents Directly Impacted by Immigration Policy Available for Interviews

Today, a judge in Texas is hearing opening arguments in the 25-state lawsuit against the President’s recent action on immigration. While Governor Greg Abbott of Texas is spearheading the lawsuit, he’s joined by state governors and attorneys general from 24 other states—including Ohio—who have signed on to this frivolous lawsuit.

In response, over 530 Ohio leaders, lawyers, immigration advocates, voters, and residents sent a letter to Gov. John Kasich and Attorney General Mike DeWine expressing their deep disappointment with Ohio’s support of a lawsuit that, if successful, would harm tens of thousands of local families with U.S. citizen children.

Among the signers is Manny Bartsch, a Heidelberg University graduate and long-time Ohio resident, whose battle against deportation was covered extensively by state and national media in 2005 and beyond. Back then, DeWine was helpful to Bartsch as he sought to remain in his home country, the United States. Fast forward to 2012 and Bartsch was finally eligible for papers under President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. This is one of the programs DeWine’s lawsuit now aims to eliminate.

Said Bartsch:

Losing DACA would mean losing the tools I have to live life. Instead of being a contributing member of society, I would return to living in limbo. With no way to progress in life, I would become unable to provide for my wife. It would make everyday life a struggle, and I would constantly have to depend on other people. The biggest thing that would be the hardest pill to swallow would be not taking care of my wife.

In addition to supporting the group letter, Bartsch is sending a personal note to the Attorney General which reads, in part, “Since 2005 I have received my Bachelor’s degree from Heidelberg University. I served as President of my fraternity, Greek Council Executive Committee member, and I was very involved in my campus community. What else do I have to do to prove I belong here? What happened since 2005 that made you change your mind?”

Ohio’s Latinos are sick and tired of watching Republicans use immigration as a political wedge issue. The fact is that they’re playing politics with our lives and hurting our families and communities. This isn’t about Kasich and DeWine vs. President Obama. This is about Kasich and DeWine vs. thousands of Ohio families, Latinos and U.S. citizen children. We strongly oppose their efforts to tear our communities apart.

On behalf of the Metropolitan Area Religious Coalition of Cincinnati, Executive Director Margaret A. Fox said:

In March 2013, MARCC led with other organizations and institutions of higher education to craft with local government a resolution declaring Cincinnati as an Immigrant Friendly City. At this time, Cincinnati’s Mayor has appointed an Immigration Task Force where a MARCC representative is working diligently with other representatives from Cincinnati on specific immigrant friendly recommendations. It is with this in mind that MARCC asks the State of Ohio to withdraw from the Texas Attorney General’s lawsuit against the Obama Administration’s immigration policy.

According to Lynn Tramonte, Cleveland-based Deputy Director of America’s Voice;

Ohioans are reasonable people. Our state leaders need to be reasonable too, and stop playing politics with peoples’ lives. It makes no sense to block a policy that brings stability to the lives of U.S. Citizen children, documents the undocumented, and expands the tax base—just because this policy was created by a Democratic president. We call on Governor Kasich and Attorney General DeWine to do the right thing for Ohio families, workers, businesses, and communities, and remove our state’s good name from this hateful lawsuit.

Veronica Dahlberg, Executive Director of HOLA Ohio, said this:

What has always set Ohio apart politically is its independent and moderate approach to solving problems impacting constituents. So we were disappointed to see Ohio jump onto this partisan bandwagon. We need our leaders to address the immigration issue in a substantive way for the well-being of thousands of families and children, and to realize the full economic potential our state.

David Leopold, Cleveland-based immigration attorney and past president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) added:

Sound bites, slogans, and frivolous lawsuits aside, the reality is that the immigration action undertaken by the president is not only legal, it’s damn good public policy. It will keep our borders protected by focusing more enforcement resources on border security, it will make our communities safer by getting rid of dangerous criminals and security threats, and it will keep American families together. Ohio stands to gain $41 million dollars in tax revenue to be paid by an estimated 82,000 undocumented Ohioans who’ll qualify for the program. Sadly, Kasich and DeWine have chosen to put Republican Party politics before the citizens of their own state.

An op-ed from Leopold was published in the Cleveland Plain Dealer on this topic recently.

Other signers include numerous Sisters of Charity and other religious and moral voices; lawyers from across the state; LULAC of Cincinnati; David Baker, business agent for Ironworkers Local 44; advocate and DREAMer Carol Apaestegui; Debbie Kline of Cleveland Jobs with Justice; Max Rodas of Church of the Nazarene; US Marine Corps Veteran Elizabeth Perez; and many others. The letter was also signed by concerned citizens and residents, including a retired school administrator; a member of a broken family; a housekeeper; a carpenter; and someone who listed himself, simply, as an Ohio voter.

Yesterday, the House GOP took their most anti-immigrant vote yet, amending a DHS funding bill to use as a weapon against executive action and DACA. It’s the GOP’s first immigration move this session — and they’ve made it unequivocally in favor of mass deportation. Here’s what commentators are saying today about the Republicans’ foolish move, and its consequences for 2016 and beyond.

Some 55 percent of those surveyed in a recent CBS News poll say Congress should allow the president’s executive actions…Just four in 10 say lawmakers should move to overturn the actions.

That’s despite only 48 percent of Americans believing Obama acted within his authority as president — only slightly above the 46 percent who think he did not. But 62 percent of Americans think illegal immigrants who pass a background check and pay their taxes should be allowed to stay given certain requirements, providing the president political cover on his executive actions.

Greg Sargent at the Washington Post highlights what yesterday’s vote means — if Republicans are opposed to DAPA/DACA and the principles of prosecutorial discretion undergirding the programs, then they must be in favor of (randomly chosen) mass deportations. Republicans were supposed to re-brand their party image after 2012, but instead they’ve become even more conservative:

That would appear to mean Republicans think enforcement resources should be re-focused back on the deportation of low-level offenders — with jobs and community ties — from the interior. At least, it invites the question of whether that’s what Republicans think.

“Republicans just voted against a mainstream law enforcement utilization of prosecutorial discretion,” Frank Sharry of America’s Voice tells me. “Would they instruct enforcement agents to treat a DREAMer, the spouse of a soldier, or the mother of an American citizen as an equal deportation priority to a convicted gang member, a smuggler, or a serious criminal?”…

That may be good politics in most House Republican districts. But we’re now heading into another presidential race, and the House GOP position is arguably to the right of Mitt Romney’s “self-deportation” stance.

Fernando Espuelas at Fox News Latino has a scathing column about the logic behind the House GOP leadership’s decision to hold yesterday’s vote. The only way yesterday’s vote makes sense, Espuelas argues, is if Republicans are content to give up the Latino vote entirely:

The Congressional GOP’s unhealthy obsession with President Obama’s use of his presidential powers has driven them into a strategic black hole, with very high, long-term costs for the party and future candidates….

The party of “family values” expressed its will in the House that immigrant families be separated, homes broken up and communities devastated. The fact that some 70 percent of those people affected are Hispanic gives this action the added onus of targeting the fastest growing American ethnic group.

From a strategic standpoint, therefore, the GOP’s latest aggression against immigrants only makes sense if they have already abandoned all hope of winning the 2016 presidential election…

Boehner’s attempt to disguise this mass deportation vote as some sort of strike against Obama’s supposedly unlawful use of executive powers will not work. To the extent that Latinos need another reminder that the GOP is intrinsically antagonistic to Hispanics, this vote will be a permanent reminder that less than two weeks into the GOP’s control of Congress, the party united in favor of deporting the maximum number of people – including children…

Today House Republicans voted for what might be called “comprehensive anti-immigration reform.”…

Nationally, the confirmation that Republicans are now the party of mass deportation will probably have a more profound and lasting effect. Indeed, it’s unclear how the party walks back such a stark position just before it leaps into a presidential election…

Less than two years ago, in March 2013, the Republican National Committee released its “Growth & Opportunity Project” report, which included discrete sections on reaching out to “Hispanics” and “Asian and Pacific Islander Americans.”

That was the past, and the past is another political party. The Tea Party — you know, the rabble rousers who were allegedly humbled and defeated by “establishment” Republicans in last year’s primary elections — has torched all that. The only question is how high the flames will rise by 2016.

La Opinión reminds us that it’s a national security funding bill that Republicans are playing with:

National security is a top priority, except for the House of Representatives.

There, the almost 40 billion dollars to fund the federal agency amount to little less than a vehicle in their constitutional war with President Obama. It’s a weapon to stop what they call a presidential abuse of power with the use of executive action, especially involving immigration.

On the one hand, it’s endangering the funding of the federal agency for the purpose of scoring political points, knowing that the measure approved yesterday most likely won’t prosper at the Senate. The ultimate goal is to make Obama sign a law he won’t be able to refuse, and which would contain the elimination of protections from deportation.

On the other hand, they prefer that millions of people remain hidden in our society instead of bringing them out of the shadows and making known who they are and where they live. That will surely contribute to national security.

But the House seems too self-absorbed in its fight with President Obama to see beyond that. Immigration is one of those issues that cloud their common sense anyway.

And Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post highlights the Republicans’ lack of a plan. Even if the Senate passes the House bill (which they don’t have the votes to do), Obama will veto it. Will Republicans really defund DHS to emphasize how much they hate immigrants?

So what is the plan, Senator? Oh, yes, pass the House bill. But when Republicans cannot get 60 votes for cloture, what then? Here is where it gets interesting — or potentially disastrous, depending on your view. Cruz is now part of the majority party, so the onus will be on Republicans to come up with an agreeable measure that still funds the Department of Homeland Security, unless Congress is willing to defund that department indefinitely. Moreover, suspending funding for border security would seem to undermine the complaint that there is not enough border security and we are at the mercy of smugglers and druglords. (No border security during a shutdown, or a skeletal crew deemed to be emergency staff, would be less than the current staffing allows.)

A GOP Senate staffer remarked, “I’d love to tell everyone we’re going to stop President Obama dead in his tracks, but unfortunately I just don’t see that happening right now. The truth of the matter is, at least at this time, there is no ‘Plan B.’ ” He is right. Democrats will inflexibly demand a clean funding bill, and there is currently no mood for a compromise among Republicans who vow to undo the executive order as a matter of constitutional propriety. After that? “There is a fear this ultimately plays out with us being forced to choose between passing a clean appropriations bill to fund DHS or shutting down DHS,” the staffer said. “And in light of the Paris attack, shutting down DHS is not a real politically appealing option.”

This strategy of attacking the administration’s enforcement policies is mind-boggling—though not surprising, given the House’s inability last year to even consider the bipartisan Senate immigration reform bill, which included the largest border security expansion ever—from members of the House who claim to be border and national security hawks. Put simply, the president’s actions on immigration will actually improve our nation’s security…

Republican leadership in Congress promised to get things done and to not shut down the government. Yet refusing to fund Homeland Security for a full year stymies or shutters important national security work and denies resources to the men and women sworn to protect Americans every day. All to try and stop an Obama policy reform that will actually make us safer…

Protecting the safety and security of the country and our citizens is the paramount responsibility of the federal government. Yet the agency charged with that duty is struggling for funding because the Republican Congress doesn’t like President Obama’s immigration strategy. If Congressional Republicans want to challenge Obama’s immigration policy, they should pass immigration reform instead of playing politics with national security.

Immigration advocates and Dreamers took the vote as a personal attack on them and their families, because Republicans left them no choice.

“As 2016 GOP presidential hopefuls throw their names in the hat, House Republicans are taking steps to make their party’s job of winning the White House more difficult by voting to put millions of immigrants back on the road to deportation,” said Christina Jimenez, managing director of United We Dream. “Do GOP leaders think that there won’t be a political price to pay for votes to deport millions of parents like mine?”

Today House Republicans passed anti-immigrant legislation that would overturn last November’s executive actions, end the DACA program for DREAMers, and maximize deportations of undocumented immigrants settled in America.

These Republicans don’t seem to get that for millions of Americans this issue is not political, it is deeply personal. With this vote they are telling American citizen children that their parents should be deported, or telling a Dreamer that they have no claim on the country they grew up in, of telling a military family that while one spouse is on the front lines defending our nation, the other could be at the front of the line for deportation.

Last year, we partnered with our friends over at United We DREAM on a project we call OurHome.us. The project features stories of United We DREAM and America’s Voice members that have been impacted by DAPA and DACA.

These are just a few of the stories of real people under attack by the GOP.

Ana from CO

Ana, a US Citizen, lives in Colorado. The president’s immigration action is important to her because her stepfather and many of her friends are directly impacted.

Monica from IA

Monica is a DACAmented Dreamer who grew up in rural Iowa. She comes from a mixed status family. Her sister is also a Dreamer and her brother is a US citizen.

Monica’s member of Congress, Rep. Steve King, is one of the leading Republicans trying to end President Obama’s new immigration policy. But for Monica, the immigration debate is not about partisan politics but about families. Today she is fighting for her mother, who is one of the 17,000 Iowans who will likely benefit from the President’s new immigration policy.

Rachel from OH

Rachel Bwatwa is an undocumented woman from Tanzania. She lives in Columbus, Ohio and is married to Christopher Watson, a U.S. citizen. They have a 3 year old son, Caleb Josiah Watson.